between the raindrops
by her-eyes-fiery-pinpricks
Summary: He loves her. He loves her so so much. Sometimes he cries because of how much he loves her. And how she might not even know anymore. / For the lovely Jessica. The genres don't imply so, but whatever. Charbeck OS. T for how much I cried after writing it.


**December 15, 2012. I drive home from my Holiday Showcase with my dad. I turn on my iPod to a song I just got. And…this happens.**

**I wrote this in the beginning of July. And right after...I just felt like I couldn't. I just couldn't publish it. But it's a very special person's birthday, and I have a very good reason for publishing this now.**

**I went to a Teen Writer's Support Group (same one that made me publish Open Arms) and read this and after like me crying they all just attacked me with support. They, like, praised me. I was all like "WHOA WHOA WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED HUMAN SUPPORT" so I decided then that this will be published, someday.**

**BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME. We all need to talk about someone smfah.**

**JESSICA. AmandaKK1524. (Y'all are probably like "they just did something what is this nowww") IT'S HER HUFFLEPUFFIN' BIRTHDAY, Y'ALL. So here's a requirement. If you review this, you need to send her a birthday PM. IF NOT, DISHONOR! DISHONOR ON YOUR WHOLE FAMILY. Make a note of this. DISHONOR ON YOU! DISHONOR ON YOUR COW!**

**I'm sorry. BUT SHE'S JUST MAYBE ONE OF THE BEST NUTELLA FAIRLIES AND THE WORLD AND I LOVE HER. So this is for her. I don't wanna publish something unhappy for her...(it's in the title..."_Happy_ birthday"...) but she asked.**

**FOR YOU. JESSIE. I WUV WOO**.

**Between the Raindrops**

He walks because of the pain. If he stops, he's sure to die with it.

Breathing curses, he shakes his head in rapid succession, as if the movement would rid of the reality. The grayness around him is choking. Suffocating.

But this damming sensation is just a dull throb compared to this heart ache.

The streets spill out endlessly in front of his feet, and that's just fine. Have something work out for once. Sure. It's everything but her. Kids finally talk to him. He's exempt from fighting evil every night. His friends have an exclusive tenderness that coats every word, every syllable. They comfort him. They try.

But none of this matters if she's not okay. _Not one bit._

He's just got back from her house. _How far can he stretch till breaking?_ The ugly disease had decided to land on her flawless porcelain doll face, and the walls come crashing down. Now everyday he can see how it's slowly wearing away that pretty smile, killing the kindred spirit that always lives. Lived. The world's a crazy place.

How wearily she greeted him today. With only a weak eye twinkle. Didn't even get up from the bed. Her sister opened the door, because she can't get up now, unless she risks falling. Marie's blue eyes met Maybeck's, and it said a million things—she isn't doing good. _Not today._

"Hey, Char," Maybeck whispered, not daring to pronounce her name fully, as if the very word would make her dust.

And that was it. No more words. He gazed in as her glazed, torn eyes focus up as the pain finds its way up her body. Toes, knees. Shoulders, head.

He needs to be strong for her, and he would never admit this—but it's almost like he's the one shaking in the bed.

It's been three years. Maybeck can't remember a time when time was this drawn-out, stretched till you're certain you're gonna snap.

But pain can slur the sharpest lines of time and space. The first year, it had been just a matter of getting it removed. Nothing serious. They treated her delicately, as expected. Then the second, when the news had come that it's staying put. He can still see her face when she had been told. The way her eyes curled up and she bit her lip. It was just…their job to pray hard.

Then the third year had come and they were almost absolutely certain.

_No one knows how tough it is, _Maybeck will shout at the world sometimes. To get out of bed every day, and see the sun's disappeared again. To be stopped cold each time she seems to be holding her breath, where in reality, you are too. To be frightened for your life, each day, but the fear's not even for your own life.

It's tearing him apart. But it's not like he can leave the room and cry about it. Because it's everywhere. Surrounding him, laughing at him, as if it wasn't a big deal. _It is a big deal!_

Sometimes he'll take her out when she feels well enough to walk, and bring her to places so she can actually feel like a real human girl, and experience real human girl emotions, like happiness and safety and security, which have just been words for a long time now.

Maybe they'll walk by the school. Or sit in his room above the shop.

This doesn't make a smile budge. Nothing will.

But when the skies turn gray and open up, he knows immediately to meet her by the door. The closest they'll get to a feeling is when they watch the rain on the bench, _their bench,_ facing the park, _their park_, where they had played amongst each other, years before fighting side by side.

Charlene would lift her shaking hand and maneuver it through the falling teardrops, trying to keep her finger dry. She would sit, mesmerized by the game, and he would sit, mesmerized, by her will to go on.

"Hm," she said one day, on the bench, playing the between-the-raindrops game, speaking for the first time in months, "I can't seem to escape."

That made him silent too. Scared to breathe, scared to talk, scared to talk, scared to think that unthinkable thought that _she knows, she knows_ it's slowly killing her and that it won't stop, that it'll never stop tearing her life about and his life apart and everything they ever had will be nothing, _nothing at all _after it happens, just as fleeting as the rain she loves so much, because it meant _life._

But all rain falls, from Heaven, from Divine, from all things good, and goes _splat_, on the ground, never to be seen again because the perfect tear shape _shattered._

It's this that ensures his solitude.

"It's supposed to rain tomorrow," she said, now back to her room, and he finally realized his hand is on hers. As if he can suck the sickness from her.

Exhale. "I'll be here." He struggled. "Always. Every step."

Tears threatened to spill, and Maybeck knew he should leave. With one more squeeze he let go of her hand and turned around, not able to look at the Charlene Victoria Turner that once was. A very long time ago.

As Maybeck escaped from the fire that's Charlene's room, he put his face in his hands, holding back sobs that's so darn hard to keep in. Marie leaned against the railing, looking down.

"Be prepared," she said.

"I have my phone," he responded, and left the house, not able to look at her sister too, because there's Charlene in her too.

There was Charlene on the porch as he walks out. The cars were Charlene. The pavement was Charlene. The stars are Charlene.

Now, there's Charlene in the rain that suddenly falls.

_It's not fair._ It's not fair that she was ripped out of her social life. It's not fair that she wasn't able to graduate because she didn't attend the proper number. It's not fair that she can't crossover to escape the life that is, because the server can't transport her. It's not fair that she and her sister are the only ones in the house, because somebody made a mistake.

He's chasing something he'll never catch.

It's not fair that she has this rare disease that's finally made her blind. He wasn't sure if she even knew he was there tonight.

He loves her. He loves her so _so_ much. Sometimes he cries because of how much he loves her. And how she might not even know anymore.

So when his phone rings, he reaches out to his left and grabs onto her ghost hand. "Wait," he says to Marie's shaky breathing. "Wait."

He waits for his hands to feel the rain.

"I'm ready."

**Okay. Now go wish Jessie a Collins Key Birthday.**


End file.
